1.15.2007

HH Com Rd 2 #57 (300)

First, he'd fallen asleep face-first onto his folding tray, and now miscellaneous debris clung to his chin like a dirt goatee.

Second, the curvy blonde struggling to free herself from the mosquito netting looked nothing like his assistant Linda--the only female on Taylor's crew--and more like one of the hotties populating Hef's mansion and Taylor's dreams. How long had it been since he'd laid eyes on a woman who wasn't covered in dirt? Three weeks? Four?

Taylor rolled back his bunched shoulders, lifted up his head, and squinted at the woman tangled in the heavy netting. A dusty tent on the edge of a Costa Rican rain forest was an unlikely place to encounter a moonlit silhouette like the one knifing up his netting. Maybe he wasn't quite as awake as he'd thought.

"Er... May I help you?" he ventured, the words scratchy against his dry throat.

"Shh, little Angus," came the soft reply. "Go back to sleep."

Little Angus? Who the hell was Little Angus? Taylor rubbed the heel of one hand across his cheeks, dislodging the remaining dirt. Usually, the women in his dreams had better names for him than Little Angus.

"I'm not little," he muttered, struggling to his feet. "Or Angus. Who the hell are you?"

"I'm a tooth fairy, of course." With that matter-of-fact proclamation, she jerked her ankle free of the strings binding the netting to the lining of the tent. The canvas flaps fluttered closed, enshrouding them in darkness. "Now, go back to sleep or I won't leave a silver dollar under your pillow."

"I don't have a pillow," Taylor ground out. "And it will cost you more than a silver dollar to replace my mosquito netting."

He groped for the fallen Mag-lite underneath the folding tray and aimed the mega-watt beam at the curvy intruder.

Chin-length silver-blonde hair fluttered above bare shoulders. A barely-there Tinkerbell-style dress shimmered from breasts to thighs. Thin black cat-eye glasses framed wide green eyes. But even more bizarre than the bare feet was the pair of oversize glitter wings protruding from her back.

Either Halloween started in May this side of the equator or something was seriously wrong here.

"Give me that, you bad boy." The woman lunged forward, snatched the flashlight out of his hand and pointed the beam at Taylor.

Her gaze heated as the light traveled from the tiny bones and broken rocks cluttering his folding tray, to his unshaven face and his bare chest, to his cotton covered thighs. The stifled gasp and wavering light indicated that his well-worn khakis did a poor job of hiding the effects of a good dream.

Taylor freed the flashlight from her trembling fingers and knelt to light his battery-operated camping lanterns. What kind of woman crept around the Costa Rican countryside in glitter wings and painted toes? Taylor wasn't usually one for Velcro wings, but painted toes on the other hand...

"Who are you really?" he demanded, gripping the flashlight in one hand and attempting to subtly adjust his cargo pants with the other. "And where are your shoes?"

Taylor stalked forward, using his size to edge her closer to the opening of the tent. "Why wouldn't fairies wear shoes?"

Her back hit the netting. "Some do, just not tooth fairies. It's not part of the dress code. Now, where's Angus?"

He blinked. "Who?"

Daisy's palms shoved at his chest in exasperation. "Angus, dummy! I need to give him a dollar."

"Listen, lady." He brushed her hands from his shirt. "None of my crew is named Angus. Furthermore, none of my crew is named Daisy. This means, cute or not--you don't belong here. I'm going to have to ask that you leave the dig site immediately."

Daisy ducked under Taylor's pointing arm and flopped down onto his sleeping bag. "How can this be happening?" She heaved a dramatic sigh, rolled onto all fours, and began feeling around inside the bag.

Her minuscule green dress didn't cover much from this angle, and Taylor learned another new fact about tooth fairies: the dress code apparently included lacy lingerie.

Prune ruthlessly, starting with everything in red.I'd give this five pages probably, but I'd want a synopsis very early on to see what kind of plot I'm going to find under my pillow.